


Where the Wild Things Are

by TwilightDeviant



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: I hope you like stories about camping, M/M, Post-Movie(s), Wilderness boyfriends wear a bear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 20:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8298931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwilightDeviant/pseuds/TwilightDeviant
Summary: At the end of one path, Red Harvest searches for a new one. Jack Horne invites him to tag along until he finds it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I may be mostly alone in shipping this, but I was inspired to write and so I wrote. Definitely a personal record between discovering a ship and publishing fanfiction for it. I just love the potential for more interaction here. They should have been sort of enemies, but there was an almost playful attitude towards each other sometimes. Definite respect. It wasn’t addressed in a direct enough way. But they’re almost always next to each other in group shots. After finding out Red Harvest spoke some English, all Jack wanted was to talk. Red Harvest avenged Jack’s death and recovered his body in the end. Vincent and Martin have a sweet relationship in real life. So yeah, I’m here for it, and I am calling it Red Horne. You may join me in it if you so choose.
> 
> The process of tanning an animal hide is described in this fic. It’s not in great detail, but I thought I’d warn about it in case someone should be bothered.
> 
> This is obviously an “everybody lives” AU. Or at least Jack lives. I barely mention everyone else. But sure. Why not? Everybody lives.

 

They did not often speak.

There was a language barrier which prevented the deep philosophies found in still nights and dark silences. They used uncontroversial phrasings, those certain harmless remarks and observations. But emotions, wicked pasts, outlooks on how the world was viewed through his own eyes, they did not have enough words in common for that. There was a shared knowledge over how unnecessary conversation truly was. It was not new knowledge. Jack was a widowed, fatherless mountain man. Red Harvest was a warrior wearing solitude as his destiny. They were meant to be alone, and in loneliness, there was defaulted quiet. By being together, they defied the loneliness, but they would share the quiet.

Dust cleared. Fire hot guns cooled. Innocent folk were mended. The town of Rose Creek went back to order. But that was only after the dead were buried.

The battle trench made a good mass grave for Bogue and his men. Jack said a little prayer over it for the sake of his conscience. Red Harvest and a few others helped shovel on the dirt.

“God did not want us dyin’ in that death trap,” Jack decided. He stuck his shovel in the ground and wiped the sweat of desert sun from his eyes. “Got somethin’ bigger planned for us, yes sir. But I think I’ll head out on my own ‘til I find what that is. Yes, I believe I will. Where you off to?”

Red Harvest stopped shoveling long enough to shake his head. “New path,” he said. He did not know where that was.

“Well, you come with me,” Jack suggested. “You come with me, and I’ll take you further than you’d normally go, further than most folk would take ya. You come with me and see if you can’t find the start of your path there.”

Red Harvest accepted his proposition. It surprised them both, that acceptance, but in a very muted way. It was the sort of unpreparedness that did not have a second step because it was supposed to end at the first. But they moved on from there. They planned from there. Red Harvest captured one of the loose ponies from Bogue’s army to be their pack horse. They loaded donated supplies, they said goodbyes, and they rode off together.

“‘Red Harvest’ is just that little bit of a mouthful, ain’t it?” Jack said to him early on. “Big name,” he clarified more simply, “long.” He looked the boy up and down. “I’ll call ya Red, if that don’t offend too greatly.” Red Harvest was a stoic individual, and Jack could not yet differentiate between his confusion and contemplation. “You can call me Jack,” he said, “or Horne.” He put a hand against his chest. “Jack.” He touched Red Harvest. “Red.”

“You call me Red,” the boy permitted in good English. “I call you Jack.”

Jack grinned at him so wide. “Same people teach you English teach you about the Lord?” he inquired. “I don’t keep a Bible on hand no more, but I’d bet we can find us a pastor and christen you yet.”

“No,” Red Harvest declined. “No white man’s god.”

“Suit yourself,” Jack allowed. “God take us one or both, and that’ll be the end of our friendship, I’d a-reckon.”

They were very different men and remained different, but that was not to say their partnership was devoid of similarities.

Most folk out west knew how to fend for themselves when traveling outside of civilization. Jack was better than those most, and he named himself wise in choosing the sole companion from their little group who matched himself in skill. Red Harvest could make a fire without matches. He could kill dinner and clean it. His vigilance was a wonder, and Jack knew a competent man watched his back. There were a few areas where Jack outshined him, those skill sets Red Harvest considered women’s work. But Jack started class and taught the boy— so that he might rescue him from a strict diet of meat. There was no shame in women’s work, especially not if its greatest consequence was to make a man self-reliant. Jack let Red Harvest in on that secret.

They were a few days out, and the dirt beneath Jack felt better than a chair or a bed ever could. He leaned against a tree and listened to the crackling fire and the distant howling wolves who would come no closer to the blaze. Only in the wild did he feel he could relax. He imagined Red Harvest was the same. People and society were nice but stifling.

“Others,” Red Harvest said, “live in towns.”

“Our friends?” Jack questioned. ‘Friend’ was an easier word to understand than whatever bond they shared with those men for a week. He doubted they would cross paths again. But friendship might be the right word. It might be. It had been so long since Jack had a friend, he could not recall the qualifications. “Men we fought with?” Red Harvest nodded. “Yes, I ‘spose they do live in towns most the time.”

“You... do not live in towns.” If the statement were a question, it was not asking for confirmation but explanation. “You... don’t... live in towns... like other white man.”

“Nope.”

“Why?” he finally asked outright.

“Some men are better off away from people,” Jack replied. “Now, I like the towns and I especially like the food, but it ain’t nothin’ but a vacation... temporary... short stay.” It was sometimes difficult finding words the boy knew. “Don’t know why I’m explainin’ it to you of all people. You know what it’s like, don’t ya? Or maybe it is you didn’t think I noticed you camping outside with me while all our friends was up usin’ the hotel.”

“I don’t like towns.”

“Is that it?” Jack said. He let the well cleaned bone of a rabbit’s leg dangle from his mouth. “Is it you don’t like towns or towns don’t like you? ‘Cause I believe that last one was a little fond of ya, what with your helpin’ to save ‘em and all.”

“I...” Red Harvest did not know the word in English. He tried saying it in Comanche, but of course Jack did not understand that one. “My people, my town, move, gone. I like my town, no white man’s town.”

Jack knew the Comanche were a migrant people, always packing up and moving, covering hundreds of miles in a year. He knew if Red Harvest ever wanted to see his particular band again it would take weeks of tracking, days of prayer, and just a bit of dumb luck. The word Red Harvest did not know occurred to him. “You miss ‘em,” he enlightened. “They’re gone, and it hurts.” Jack tapped his heart. “Hurts. You miss ‘em.”

Red Harvest nodded. “I miss them,” he repeated. “But I go alone. I find my path.”

“Well, not all alone,” Jack said with a smile. He nudged Red Harvest’s leg with his foot. “Got me, don’t ya?” Red Harvest did not say anything or even move. “You got me,” Jack said again, and the boy nodded, uncaring. “Say it.”

If Red Harvest kept quiet the rest of the evening, it would have been nothing but normal for them. He spoke though. He did. After a moment, he said what Jack told him. “I got you.”

“That’s right,” Jack said with a hum and a nod. “You got me and I got you ‘til we go and get tired of seein’ each other’s face. We’ll be together ‘til then, Lord permittin’.” There was a certain relief associated with it, in knowing that, for a little while, there was someone to talk with, someone to ride with, share with.

“Hard,” Red Harvest admitted, “hard to go alone.”

Jack had no kindness to gift. He had no comfort that might eradicate the pain of loneliness. All he had was the bitter truth: “It gets easier.”

More often than not, months would pass without Jack talking to, or even seeing, another soul. It had diminished many of his social skills— if he even had those to begin with. If some people were meant to be alone, he was one of them. He could handle it. Maybe it was what he deserved.

“You probably got a right to know before you go one step further with me.” Upon reaching a certain point, omission became kin to deception. Lack of effort put forth made it no less villainous. “I killed a lot of your folk, Mr. Red. I did. Yes, I did. Damn near made a life mission off it.” Jack was unsure how much of the confession Red Harvest understood. “I’d just... I’d grab that black hair and put my hatchet right at the line. Too many to count, sir. Too many to count.” Jack felt somber and haunted. He was horrified and tormented by his own muscle memory that knew death and mutilation as well as breathing. “But I like your scalp right where it grows, Red. A fine, handsome fellow you are indeed. And you’ll be needing that hair to keep your head warm.”

“You kill?” Red Harvest questioned. “You kill Comanche?”

“Some,” Jack confirmed, “just a few who came at me. It was mostly Crow I fought, but there was Comanche, Blackfoot, Sioux, few others. I never had anything personal against your tribe, no sir. So God bless that our paths never crossed in such a way we felt obligated to tussle. Another lifetime, a different circumstance, I might’ve had to kill you.” Jack nodded his head along to the unfortunate truth of that. “But I also think I’d’ve regretted it afterward, face like that, honor like that.”

Red Harvest sat still as he contemplated the hypothetical slaughter Jack imagined for them. “I kill you first,” he said with a smug grin.

Jack laughed. “Maybe,” he conceded, “just maybe. But I don’t wanna find out who’d win between us now, Red. That part of me’s all done and washed up— over, end.”

“No more.”

“No more.”

“Why you stop?”

“Same reason I started... I suppose. Didn’t know what else to do.” That was not a complete answer. Jack did not want to give the complete answer, but Red Harvest did have a right to know, he rationalized, if they were going to be traveling together. Trust was vital. Jack gnawed on the rabbit bone in his mouth. He would use the simplest words he could conjure. He would say it once and never again. “Family died,” he told Red Harvest. “Family killed. Wife, children, killed.” He made a mark in the air of just how tall his children last stood. It was not nearly high enough. “Children killed. Killed by Crow. Killed while I was away.” It was the most chilling, most grievous, nauseating, unbearable sight imaginable: his wife and children on the floor, long dead with withering skin pulled tight across their bones as if in curable emaciation. It was the very last thing Jack expected after a long trek abroad and his eager return home. It was a memory he revisited too often. A good day was one where it festered in the back of his brain and did not creep to the front to invade conscious thought. There were not enough good days. “Dead... Dead family hurt me. Hurt,” he emphasized by patting his chest. “I killed Crow for revenge, killed them to feel better, hurt less. Didn’t help. No,” he shook his head, “no, it didn’t help. I stopped killin’ when I didn’t have to. Crow stopped comin’ after me, and I stopped comin’ after them. No more.”

Red Harvest was stoic, but he was sympathetic to Jack’s horror. Just a little bit of compassion flickered in his face beside the firelight. “Why Crow kill?”

Jack shrugged his shoulders and dropped his hands down hard on his thighs. “Supplies, maybe it was,” he said, “food. Happened in wintertime, it did. I know I’d seen… I’d seen some of them poachin’ my traps. Few of ‘em I confronted. Few of those I killed. Maybe what happened was payback for that. Yes, maybe.” He hated to think the whole ordeal was his fault, the result of his skirmish, but the notion had crossed his mind once or twice or a thousand times.

“You kill families?”

“No.” Jack shook his head. “Never no women, no children, before or after.”

“You kill Crow. Crow kill family.” It was an unbalanced concept that did not sit well in his noble heart. “I am…” Red Harvest tried to remember a word he was certain he knew. “I’m sorry… Jack. Honorable men kill you.” He patted Jack’s knee. It made a muffled smack. “Disproportionate revenge.”

“‘Disproportionate,’” Jack repeated through a hissing laugh. His stomach jumped and trembled with quick, genuine mirth. “Hell, I barely know that word, boy.” It felt good to laugh over something so ridiculous, something not even funny. Jack quieted down after a moment and caught his breath. He wiped a tear of exertion from his eye. “No,” he said. “No, I had it comin’, I suppose. I did, yes. I did. It were my crime, all of it, all the killin’. I already owned up to it with the Lord. I just hate it was my…” Jack’s chest felt tight with a big breath he exhaled. “I hate that it was my family to pay for it, is all. You understand.”

“I understand,” Red Harvest answered, thinking Jack asked after his comprehension.

Jack pulled the rabbit bone from his mouth. He threw it away and took a small bottle of whiskey from his pocket. He drank in the liquor and wheezed out a cough against its burn. He passed the bottle to Red Harvest, who took first a sip and then a gulp. The boy cleared his throat afterward but handled his fire water well. He returned the bottle to Jack. They sipped on it, passing the drink back and forth. There were a few more bottles with the supplies, so Jack felt warranted in wasting one all at once.

“My wife,” he spoke, foot caught in his own open door to the past, “my wife was Flathead, Salish. They’re further up north, the Salish. Don’t imagine you’ve ever met one yourself, Red. They’re nice folk. Mm-hmm, they are. And my wife, she was... She was a peach, that one. Beautiful girl. Long, long, black hair she had. Kept it braided. Quick as a bear trap she was, smart.” He tapped the side of his head. “Smart. Taught me a few things I didn’t already know. You think... You think after more ‘an twenty years you’d get tired of missing someone. You don’t though. Maybe that don’t ever go away. Miss her,” he said again, using that new word Red Harvest learned. Jack took a drink of whiskey, longer than the rest. He held the nasty liquid in his mouth and then he swallowed. He passed the bottle.

“Children?” Red Harvest inquired, not certain if he was supposed to, not certain if asking and continuing the conversation was what Jack wanted.

“No.” Jack shook his head. His eyes fixed on the fire, unblinking. “No.” There was too much pain in talking about such quick, incomplete lives. Red Harvest held the whiskey out to Jack, but he declined. “No more,” he said. “You go ahead and keep that bottle. It’s yours.” There was less than a third left, so the gift was not so grand. Red Harvest thanked him for it anyway. “What about you now?” Jack asked. He scooted closer and gripped the boy by his knee before shaking his leg. “What sorta family’d you leave behind? Red Harvest’s family?”

Red Harvest sighed. “Father,” he listed, “brave man, good hunter; mother; _wahaatʉ_ ,” he held up two fingers, “sister; brother.”

“You the oldest?” Jack asked. He got a nod in reply. “Figured as much. Oldest outta four. You certainly act like it, bein’ so strong and fearless, independent. No wife?”

He shook his head. “No wife,” he said. “My path lead me to her.”

“Well, I wish you all the luck in finding her.” If Jack still had the whiskey, he would have waved it in a toast. “May you live a long and happy life together. I hope that. I hope that for you.”

-

When they trapped and killed a bear, it was efficient. Both men were so competent they almost stepped on each other’s toes. But with no words and only a few gestures, they decided on different tasks. Jack skinned the beast with long, sharp strokes, keeping the hide in one whole piece. Red Harvest carved out food and buried the unusable organs. While Jack was scraping fat and flesh away from the skin, Red Harvest brought him a piece of raw meat. He held the offering in his bloodied hands so that Jack might bite it without getting unnecessary blood on the fur.

“You let that pelt dry, Red. You let it dry and Jack will make you a pretty coat, yes sir.” He stretched it tight on sinew thread and set in the shade.

Red Harvest cooked the meat over a fire and cut thinner strips of it to be dried. Jack spent a long while covering the hide in salt. He used most of their supply, and meat would soon taste bland with its absence. But it would be a nice coat. All that black fur wrapped around dark skin, matching Red Harvest’s own hair, it would look good. It was worth its salt, to speak both literally and figuratively. Jack would use his more primitive techniques on any future furs, but he wanted the coat done right.

“I’ll show you my recipe for tanning,” Jack told him. He knew the Comanche had a process, as all natives did, but tanning was more of that women’s work Red Harvest did not know. Jack had a seasoned method for treating pelts that he did not mind sharing. It could hardly follow past the grave.

The coat took almost two weeks to dry. They wandered and returned, daily retiring to the temporary camp so Jack could stretch and treat the fur. When it was fully dry and soft, he trimmed straighter lines and he sewed the arms up with big, sloppy stitches. They would keep. Jack held up the coat, and Red Harvest slid his arms into the sleeves that once belonged to their bear. He shrugged into the coat completely and stood a little higher while wearing it. Jack whistled and said, “Handsome man in a handsome coat, that is.”

“Handsome?”

“Pretty,” Jack defined, “beautiful. Women is beautiful, but men are handsome.”

Red Harvest nodded. “Handsome coat,” he agreed. “Thank you.” He made his own belt and ties to keep it closed.

It was a few days later when Red Harvest got his attention. “Jack,” he called. When Jack turned around, Red Harvest threw a circle over his head. It was a knotted sinew string that pierced the bear’s claws and its largest teeth; the smaller ones were spaced between them like beads. The gift was more secret than the coat Jack made, but its creation was not something that could be wholly concealed between two men who spent almost every hour of every day together. Jack had watched him make the necklace without knowing its exact shape or purpose. But now he was honored to receive the trinket Red Harvest had been working on.

“Well, thank you, Red.” He examined the necklace and admired its craftsmanship. “Ain’t that a pretty thing.”

“Handsome,” Red Harvest insisted. “Handsome...” He gestured around his neck.

“Necklace,” Jack supplied.

“Handsome necklace for handsome man,” he said.

“What a sweet talkin’ sumbitch you are.” Jack might have blushed if he were weaker to words of flattery, or if he thought Red Harvest had a strong enough grasp of English to understand what he was truly saying.

The bear was not the last thing they killed. It was, in fact, far from the end. There was profit to be made with two hunters so remarkably talented.

The demand for fur had withered over recent years, and with it went Jack’s method of income. There was still a trade going though, small but active. Fur was worth enough to supply those necessities that must be bought instead of foraged. And it gave some manner of purpose, a goal, however insignificant. So together he and Red Harvest hunted and trapped all manner of critters, and Jack could not have asked for a better partner in the business.

They set traps for smaller game like rabbits and beavers, and between them was a differing opinion on how those traps should look and which model was more effective. The contest between the two methods ended in a draw, more or less.

Red Harvest made Jack a bow so that bullets might be reserved for larger game like bears. There was definite advantage to the silence of a bowshot and the bounty of its ammunition. But seeing sense did not make Jack good at the practice. He was a horrible shot by normal standards and an embarrassment in the shadow of a master like Red Harvest. They had nothing but time to learn, however; and the boy had nothing for him but patience. Although, he did laugh or sigh after Jack’s most bumbling attempts at archery.

Contrarily, Red Harvest did not want to fire a gun, and Jack kept that knowledge mostly to himself. He had an old pistol on his hip and was a decent shot, but he only ever treated it as a last resort. Jack made certain he kept the gun clean. But while the passion for shooting did elude him, Red Harvest took a fascination in the design of the weapons, and he would study them in moments of rest. His fingers traced every component. The metal was hard and cold, but he wanted to inspect each curve it took and each puzzle of parts it made. His fingertip sank into the crudely carved initials on the rifle. He rewrote them over and over, outlining the ‘J’ and the ‘H.’

“Jack... Horne,” Jack read. “Means it’s mine.” In the dirt, he made two more letters: ‘R’ and ‘H.’ “Red... Harvest.”

“This say Red Harvest?”

“Not all of it. Just the start.” Jack spelled out the full name. “R-E-D... H-A-R-V-E-S-T.”

“Red Harvest,” he repeated, slowly and as if he could actually read what was written.

“Don’t know if readin’ is what you want, but you should learn to sign your name at least.” To Jack, it was good advice. The occasion for a signature might never come up in Red Harvest’s life, but it was a benefit all the same.

“Jack Horne,” Red Harvest requested, “make Jack Horne.”

Jack wrote his own name, but he knew it would be confusing for a novice reader. “The end is silent,” he said. “‘E’ doesn’t make a sound. Neither does the ‘K,’ or maybe it’s the ‘C’ is quiet.” Jack was not scholarly enough to make the distinction.

“You speak more? You speak... no English?” Red Harvest inquired. “You speak Comanche?”

“Well now, there is some Salish I got from my wife, but I think the children spoke it better than I ever could. I only know just a few ugly words in Comanche,” Jack told him. “Wanted to know what was bein’ shouted at me.” Red Harvest understood and accepted that answer. They went quiet and each man retreated to his own thoughts. Red Harvest stared at the letters on the ground. “Say,” Jack considered, “you mind teachin’ me some of the pretty words? I think I might like havin’ some of your pretty words, yes sir. Let me have ‘em, if you please. And I’ll teach you more English. That’ll help, I think, help you out whensoever we part our ways. Just you teach me some pretty Comanche words first.”

“I teach pretty words.”

Red Harvest had two names; Jack learned the first one that came before translation. Trees had two names. Mountains had two names. The sun, the moon, animals, they all took on a second name. The universe doubled in what it might be called.

Jack led Red Harvest into the mountains, where beasts outnumbered man and the hunting was good. Snow had a second name.

Red Harvest was one of the most adaptable people Jack had ever come across. He was smart and not easily discouraged. He listened— or observed— when Jack demonstrated how living on a northern mountain differed from a desert plain. Red Harvest knew winter and cold. Subzero temperatures were new to him.

When there was a cave, they camped inside. Red Harvest taught Jack a nifty technique for boiling water by covering a small hole with leather, filling it, and sinking stones from the fire. The practice was useful for cooking or bathing. When there was nothing but shriveled bushes and bare trees for cover, Jack taught Red Harvest to dig a shallow pit past the snow and into the earth. They lined the human sized trench with hot embers and buried them in a thin blanket of dirt. The trick kept Jack just as warm as it always had, and that made one of them.

Shivering progressed to involuntary huffs that halted and sputtered on cold lips. That was all that came out. There was not one complaint.

Jack opened an eye and looked at the freezing, shuddering figure beside him. “Nothin’ to keep that red skin warm but the muscle,” he pitied. “Come on, Red. You come over to old Jack and I’ll keep you warm. Come on. Come on, Red. Attaboy.”

Red Harvest crept from his hole and jumped across the snow, touching as little as he could. He fell into the open arms that immediately closed around him, covering them both in Jack’s blanket. What skin Red Harvest did not have covered was ice cold. Jack rubbed his cheeks and the shaven sections of his head. Red Harvest buried his face into the fur across Jack’s chest.

“Just you lay down here, and I’ll keep ya warm ‘til we’ve put more fat on you.” He held Red Harvest in a tight embrace and patted his back.

The next evening, Red Harvest dug a ditch the width of two men. If body heat was offered on the frigid, snowy mountain, then body heat would be utilized.

-

They tanned the hides they took and wrapped them up tight on the pack horse. Eventually, the inventory of furs outnumbered supplies. It was time to cash in.

“Outposts give more credit than money for furs,” Jack told Red Harvest, speaking as he always did: with no definite idea of how many words landed. He often repeated himself with a second set of them. “We’ll trade, not sell.” Red Harvest nodded, and Jack knew he go that one. “Get some bullets, salt... whiskey, coffee. You drink coffee, Red?” He shook his head. “You oughta learn. Perks ya up and warms ya up in the morning, it surely does.”

Red Harvest followed Jack to the nearest town, but he stopped his horse before they cleared the tree line.

“I stay,” he said.

“No,” Jack denied. He would not be argued with on the matter. “You come with me, Red. They see you hidin’ up in the trees and they’re like as not to think you’re a scout, open fire. No, you stick with me.”

They rode into the town. Jack had been there only once before, and it had greatly changed in however many years that was. There were new buildings erected and renovations done to the older ones. Red Harvest was wary, but his posture was relaxed under the knowledge of the last town he walked in and out of, a town that celebrated him, dubbed him hero, savior.

It was too cold to be outside without good reason. No one stood out on their porches gawking and whispering. But there were faces, unkind faces, in the windows.

“Head up,” Jack advised. “You act like you belong and they’ll forget you don’t.”

The trading post was at the opposite end of the street, and they went the length of the town to get there. The pack horse they kept was weighted with many bear, wolf, rabbit, and beaver furs. Jack and Red Harvest both had their hands full when they untied them. Jack set his load on a wide counter inside the store. Red Harvest followed his example.

They sauntered around the shop, looking through its stock until the owner became aware of them. Red Harvest saw boxes of beads on a shelf, and Jack noticed his hand twitch with a want for them. They were pretty beads, plain or colorful and shiny, gorgeously decorated. “Get you some,” Jack encouraged. “Don’t cost much. Pick you some out.” Red Harvest nodded but did not move towards them yet. He was frugal, a bare necessities sort of man, but if they had credit left over, he would surely grab a bag.

The owner of the store finally heard them and came down from the upstairs apartment. He was glad to have some customers, but that emotion quickly died when he saw Red Harvest. Verbally, he said nothing, but an expression could paint a thousand words. Jack pulled Red Harvest over to the back corner before he started in on business.

“Moccasins are good,” he said, “but you get you a pair of boots, Red. They’re better for walking on rocks. Go on now. You pick your size.” Hesitantly, Red Harvest approached the shelves of boots. Jack knew he was smart enough to figure out sizes and left him to it. He walked over to the owner, who was looking through their furs. Jack greeted the man and was greeted in kind. “Bullets for a Hawken rifle,” he said. There was a rehearsed list in his head and he hoped for every item. “Coffee, gallon of whiskey, plug tobacco, salt, flour, beans, some socks.” He named a few more goods, among them a new kettle, but lowered his voice when he said, “And a block of chocolate.” Jack did not know if Red Harvest had ever tried chocolate, but it would be a treat either way.

“No beans and we’re low on tobacco,” the man replied. “I can give you what we got, but— Hey, can you stop him touchin’ the boots he ain’t gonna buy?”

Jack glanced at Red Harvest and saw him comparing two different styles of boot. He held the sole of one against the malleable foot of his moccasin. “Man’s got a right to make sure he picked best,” Jack said. If a shoe did not fit perfectly, miles of walking became agony. The boots would be useless, a wasted purchase.

The clerk grumbled unintelligible words and went about collecting what Jack asked for. He was calculating the pay for the furs against the cost of supplies when Red Harvest stepped up with his boots.

“Let me see,” Jack said, and he handed them over. “These are good, real good, Red. Oughta get a good long use out of them.” He set the boots on the counter. “Did you not want those beads?”

The owner looked at his mathematics and then at Red Harvest’s boots. “Ain’t got enough for the boots,” he said.

“No, no,” Jack disagreed, “we do. We got enough to cover it.” He knew what was happening, but he played dumb. All the supplies were for him, them, but the boots were for Red Harvest alone. It was his business, his transaction, and it was being refused.

“Ain’t enough.”

“Then I’ll put the coffee back,” Jack decided.

“Still not enough.”

“And the flour.”

“Mister, you gonna lose your whole bill over a pair of boots?” he questioned.

Red Harvest grabbed Jack around the arm. He leaned close and whispered in his ear, “No boots. Don’t need boots.”

Jack’s face twitched into a manic grin that would not fully form. “Hear how civilized he is?” he loudly said. “Boy says he doesn’t need your boots. What grace and humbleness course through him, my God.” The owner stuck his fingers in the boots and pulled them across the counter to put away. Jack snatched his wrist up and squeezed. He squeezed! “But see, I want him to have the boots. He earned ‘em. Bible tells us if we work hard we are rewarded. The boy worked hard. I aim to reward him. Would you go against the good book, sir?” Again, Jack squeezed, impossibly tighter. The man grunted in pain. “Would you?”

“No,” he uttered. He dropped the boots onto the counter and Jack released his hand. The man held his aching wrist against his chest. Jack could have broken it but did not, although he might have if the man were less susceptible to reason.

“Well,” Jack sighed with a pleased smile, “that’s the boots, the flour, the coffee, and all the rest you got for us. Oh... and three pounds of them there beads.” He would take no less. And if a hand went for the shotgun under the counter, Jack’s hand would find his pistol first. Thankfully, the remainder of their solicitation was as amicable as any other patron’s. Red Harvest handpicked beads and dropped them in a bag. Their goods were all accounted for and some were wrapped tight in parcel paper. “You get your boots,” he told Red Harvest. “You get those boots.” Jack carried the rest, but he made sure Red Harvest walked out holding his boots.

The town was somehow quieter and more deserted when they left.

At dusk, they made camp. Jack tossed Red Harvest a pair of socks and encouraged him to try on his new shoes. They fit perfectly, which was a good thing since they would hardly be welcomed back for an exchange. When he walked around in the boots, Red Harvest had trouble moving and balancing on soles that did not bend with his feet, but with no coercion, he admitted to their benefit and how much softer the ground felt.

“Thank you, Jack,” he said when he sat down. The boots wiggled with his toes and tapped lightly on the ground.

“Don’t thank me,” Jack insisted. “It was your money much as mine.”

“No.” Red Harvest shook his head. “You fight,” he said. “You fight for me. You are honorable man.”

“You’re a friend,” Jack said. “But even if you weren’t, right is right, wrong is wrong. You earned your boots. Now you wear the damn things ‘til they get a hole in ‘em or it’s time to go back to moccasins.”

Red Harvest looked at his boots and kept moving them around until he could tolerate the sensation. It would be a few days before they felt natural. Jack liked watching him admire the boots and was grateful once more for Red Harvest’s company.

“Why did you come with me?”

Red Harvest shrugged one shoulder. “Told me.”

“Not to sell the furs,” Jack dismissed, “not there. Why’d you come with me at all, from the start, after the battle?”

There was a pause as Red Harvest stalled on an answer he either did not want to say or had not considered. “Others live in towns,” he spoke. “I like outside. I go with you and I’m outside. I go with you and I’m not alone.”

Jack knew Red Harvest had the strength to strike out on his own again. He could wander the wilderness alone. But even with a heavy resolve for separation, when a man had the choice of company, he usually took it. Why else would Red Harvest approach eight armed strangers in the first place? He tracked the group, just as Jack had. He decided to join, just as Jack had. He killed a deer and presented it as a peace offering. They were men who loved the wild and who suffered the solitude that came with it. But they embraced a change.

“I like going with you,” Red Harvest continued. “Different from Comanche. Different from other white man. I learn things. I learn you things. You learn Comanche for me.” Red Harvest seldom smiled, but he did in that instant. It was wide and bright, unguarded and warm. “I like you, Jack. I stay with you. I go with you. I hunt with you.”

Jack felt oddly flattered. People never wanted his company unless they needed something from him: another gun to save a town, an escort for a convoy. The amount of years that had passed since someone genuinely liked being with him was a number too big to count. “W- well, thank you... Red. I like... I like being with you too.” They smiled at each other. Jack took out the block of chocolate and tossed it to him. “Try you a bite of that.”

Red Harvest unwrapped the candy and studied its density and dark color, unsure of what to think. But he trusted Jack and so he took a bite. Jack could tell the moment it began melting in his mouth. He grinned widely. His eyes lit up. He took another bite, and another. Jack had to remind him to ration it.

The next morning, Jack made a pot of coffee so strong it would float a horseshoe. Red Harvest did not like it at all, but he dropped a piece of chocolate in his cup to cut down on the bitterness.

The chocolate did not last long, not that Jack expected it to after such a positive reception. Red Harvest got a week out of the first half and three weeks out of the rest. Jack declined more than a bite when it was offered to him. While it would have been nice for a bigger taste, he treasured it less than Red Harvest. It was the boy’s treat. And while that sweet payment for his work did not last indefinitely, they got their money’s worth from the boots.

-

It was a still night without a cloud in the sky. No snow had fallen in days, but the dead quiet it brought remained. It was a night void of sound and relieved of darkness. The moon was full and bright and lit a path comparable sunlight. Not to be outdone by this display, the stars shone at full force. The regulars were more luminous, and inspired by their efforts, other smaller stars came from out of hiding. It was one of the most beautiful night skies Jack had ever seen.

Along with the vision to be perceived and the snowfall to be missed, the temperature was not so unbearable that Jack had to keep Red Harvest close as possible. They were able to lay flat on their backs, though they were still together out of habit and a knowledge that the night could turn colder before dawn.

They spoke more often. Jack had talked more in the past three months than in the last five years combined. Full comprehension of one another remained limited, and the blame for that, the magnitude of that, depended on whoever was speaking and in what language.

Red Harvest traced the sky with his finger. “That star... a big... It trapped... cave...” Jack did not know enough Comanche to comprehend the full story, but he liked to hear Red Harvest speak on in that native tongue of his. It was a pretty language, and sometimes words were nicer for their mystery. A phrase could simply be pleasing to the ears without having to carry the weight of definition behind it. Jack liked to hear the words, and he liked to hear Red Harvest speak them. The boy remained a quiet little so-and-so most of the time.

Jack had no mythology to go with stars. He knew the most common constellations and the brightness of the North Star. “That’s the Big Dipper,” he pointed out. “And Orion: man. He wears a belt.” Jack searched for any more he could find. “If ya... I think if you take the Dipper and add a few more in, you get the, uh... Well hell, I can’t remember what it’s called. Bear, it’s a bear. You take those stars there,” he indicated, “get legs, a neck, big ol’ bear.”

“I see the bear,” Red Harvest said, and Jack could hear his pleasure over that fact.

A cold wind blew and bit at their exposed faces. Red Harvest shivered. Jack moved in closer.

-

Snowfall dragged the temperature down just a few degrees. Nights became hard again, if not worse, and Red Harvest took pelts from their stock to cover himself and his blanket. He was a rounded cone of fur and dead skin with only his head sticking out, and the top of it was covered.

He was miserable. He never complained. He never turned back for warmer climates.

Jack added more wood to the fire and dropped down beside him. “I’d say cover that face up too, but then I’d lose all sight of ya.” Red Harvest was almost completely disappeared. If he sunk any lower, Jack would be talking to a mound of skins. “You don’t owe me nothin’, not a damn thing.” He wanted to make certain Red Harvest knew that. “If you want to head back on down south, I won’t blame ya none, no sir. I’ve handled bein’ alone before. I’ll handle it again.”

“I’m cold,” Red Harvest stated, verbalizing that very obvious assessment. “I don’t want to go.” Still, he did not complain.

“Then we’ll both go,” Jack decided. He knew Red Harvest did not want to be alone. Neither of them did. “We’ll pack us up and head us down somewhere warmer, a little warmer at least.”

Red Harvest shook his head. “I will...” He had a hard time finding any word to suit. “I’ll learn cold.”

“Takes years to get used to it,” Jack said. “And even then, I get cold. I do. Don’t you doubt it.”

“Jack?”

“Hmm?” he hummed.

“Shut up,” Red Harvest said. “Shut up and come here.”

Jack laughed and accepted the invitation of Red Harvest waving the furs slightly open. He sat down in front of him with his back to the fire. Red Harvest opened his wide cover like a bird taking flight. He came forward and sat on Jack’s leg before enclosing them both in the furs. Jack held and rubbed the taut muscle of Red Harvest’s back, so firm it could be felt through two shirts, one coat, and Jack’s gloves.

They kept their arms around each other, and Jack swayed them back and forth so languidly. He hummed a song that did not exist. If Red Harvest were a cat, he might have purred.

“You let me know when you’re warm now,” Jack said.

“I’m warm,” he replied. It was muffled. “Face cold.” He dug his nose deeper into the shoulder of Jack’s coat.

Jack took his hand from Red Harvest’s back and tugged the glove off with his teeth. He pulled Red Harvest away and put the backs of his curled fingers against his smooth cheek. The skin was ice cold. He gripped the boy’s chin and turned his head from side to side. “You able to grow a beard, Red?” he asked. “Beard?” He tugged on his own gray whiskers. Red Harvest touched his beard and pulled on it as well.

“Some beard,” he said. The word he used to explain was not one Jack knew, so from his nearby bag, Red Harvest pulled out a carved piece of wood. He held the instrument against his face and made a motion to indicate he plucked the hair.

“No, no, no,” Jack said. “You let it grow now. Keep your face warm.”

“No,” Red Harvest refused.

“Stubborn son of a bitch,” Jack said with a chuckle. “You think beards is ugly?”

He tilted his head and squinted his eyes as he tried to think of an inoffensive reply. “Your beard’s handsome,” he complimented. He ran his fingers through it, combing the hair, scratching the skin. After a moment and a remembrance of propriety, Red Harvest pulled his hands away. Jack never put much stock in the notion of propriety when out in the cut.

“No, you feel,” he said. “Get on in there. I don’t bite none. That’s it. Go on.” Eight fingers spread out on his cheeks and jaw. Two thumbs rested on his chin.

“It’s soft,” Red Harvest remarked.

“Longer it gets, softer it feels,” Jack told him. He knew the boy was most familiar with his own coarse stubble, and only for however brief a time it grew.

The hands withdrew. Red Harvest leaned forward and rested his cheek on Jack’s, feeling the thick hair against his own face. He moved in a slow, soothing motion. Jack wanted to hold the back of his head and keep him there until Judgment Day. How he missed the kind touch of another person, the touch of someone who meant him not one second of harm. Jack knew his breathing was slow and irregular. He knew his mind was not quite right at the moment. Red Harvest changed sides, putting his other cheek against Jack’s opposite. He did not pull apart any more than necessary and the move held the quickest instant of them face to face with noses almost touching and lips almost brushing. Then Red Harvest was rubbing himself against Jack’s beard again.

Abandoning passivity, Jack moved as well. He bobbed his head in a gentle circle, nuzzling against Red Harvest’s smooth, hairless face. He closed his eyes and only felt.

He only felt.

It was a natural progression to move on to kissing. The intimacy was asking for it, was it not? Certainly it was not, no. But if it did not call for it, perhaps it might at least permit the action. Perhaps.

Red Harvest was still and let Jack move against him. Jack rubbed those tender cycles against his cheek, shifting in his rotation, spiraling like an escaped pendulum, straying inward. Jack kissed him, just once and only briefly, a little nip.

Red Harvest went rigid. “No,” he exclaimed. “No!” He fell away from Jack and crawled from him, clumsily falling out of the furs and walking backwards on his hands and his bent legs.

“I’m sorry I did that,” Jack apologized. He contemplated his sincerity. “Won’t happen again. No more.” Of that, he was certain.

Red Harvest wiped his lips on the back of his hand, harshly and repetitively until they felt unloved. “No more?”

“No more,” Jack affirmed. It was a moment of weak indulgence, never to transpire again.

“No more,” Red Harvest murmured to himself.

The air was icy and they were bare of extra protection. A breeze blew to mock the idiocy of parting. Jack gathered up the furs and tossed them to Red Harvest. He threw them back.

“You gonna freeze just to—”

“Shut up, Jack!” His voice was angry and upset that Jack had fouled whatever bond was between them. His words were quick, but his thoughts were slow, so slow, so unsure of something. His dark eyes flickered. His features relaxed and tightened once more. Some decision was made. It was a decision whose conclusion was barred from Jack by the inscrutable torture of individual thought and the sanctuary one mind had from another.

Red Harvest crept back towards Jack. He went haltingly and with caution, like a scared little prey animal that was trying to assess his future against a monstrous predator. He was unsure, but he was curious. Red Harvest went to Jack. He knelt before him. He licked the lips he had scrubbed of unexpected affection. He licked them again. He came to the highest height on his knees. Red Harvest leaned forward.

He kissed once, just as quickly as Jack had, and pulled away. He rubbed his lips together and stared at Jack’s with much concentration and deliberation. The second kiss was short as well, but longer than the first. At its end, Red Harvest was still undecided of what he wanted or how far he wanted to pursue it. Jack sat waiting for an answer that would be given and not decided upon by himself. The third kiss was longest and carried with it a resolution. There was no coming back from it, only moving forward.

Red Harvest was a mostly inexperienced kisser, and so they waded in the shallows of the practice with no pressure nor expectation on either side. His lips were cold and chapped. Their movements were soft and reserved and irregular. The whole occurrence was not one long kiss, per se, but a dozen smaller ones that pushed and pulled, came and went, struck and withdrew with different angles and intensity. It was experimentation. Hesitance waned, and daring waxed. Red Harvest ran one hand along Jack’s cheek and draped the other across his shoulder, lazily holding him in place. Jack was not sure what to do with his hands and their spontaneous heavy weight. They shook and not from cold. He braced them against Red Harvest’s sides.

With a movement slow enough to be nearly imperceptible, Red Harvest drew back. He touched Jack’s lips one more time with a muted smack, then he rested his forehead against him, turning and rolling his head ever so tender. His breath was warm but turned to visible vapor in the cold night. Their noses almost touched. For a moment, they were statues.

There were no words. What could be said except excuses, dismissals, or guidelines of how matters should proceed? It was too soon after the fact to try and discuss emotions. Those were, as yet, indecipherable. Contemplation would come later and individually. Perhaps, in the meantime, a simple observation would be permitted.

“That was nice,” Jack whispered. He pushed the tip of his nose against Red Harvest’s, going near but not near enough kiss.

“It was decent,” Red Harvest bickered. He chuckled afterward, and Jack slapped him on the back for his joking attitude.

“Smart ass.” They each grinned and it broke whatever tension there was or might have been.

Red Harvest detached himself from Jack. “It’s cold,” he uttered. “You want to... lay down, sleep?”

“Yeah, I reckon it’s about that time, ain’t it?”

There was an awkwardness they tried to ignore, but every aspect of their routine had to be thought through. Each movement had too many implications for them to slip so easily into place. Everything felt new and different, though so little had changed.

With furs and blankets entombing them, Jack cleared his throat and said, “Well, uh, good- good night then. Good night to you, Red Harvest.”

Red Harvest exhaled one quick chuckle, like a bull snorting. “Good night, Jack Horne.” He tilted his head up, and Jack was too unsure of the question it posed to give an answer. The last thing he wanted was to be presumptuous again. Red Harvest moved forward and kissed him. Jack’s chest tightened, and only when the kiss ended could he relax again, take a breath again. Red Harvest pushed his face against Jack’s breast and mumbled some amused remark in Comanche about, “White man.”

-

Red Harvest was tough as nails and just as sharp. He could weather the most frigid winter if he tried, but Jack did not want him pushing himself to such an extreme. A lean little Indian from the plains simply was not meant for the cold, no matter how warmly Jack dressed him or how tightly Jack held him.

When the season blew its hardest, he made certain they were holed up in a very nice cave. The inside was high enough they could stand erect in all but the backmost section, which itself did not go in so far that they could not see its end. There were no secret neighbors to worry about, be they man or beast. Yes, it was a quaint singular room, a perfect dome that was thirty feet at its widest with a ceiling high enough in the center to take on all smoke from the fire pit. There was space for the horses. They had room to store the supplies and an ample area left over for sleeping.

A rough but sturdy door of logs and branches was made to cover the entrance of the cave, to seal them in, and a constant fire kept the whole place decently warm. It was warm enough to sleep apart. It was plenty warm for that. But every night, Red Harvest sidled up next to Jack and laid with him. He did so voluntarily. He did so because he wanted to.

Jack opened his arms, always ready to receive him, and Red Harvest nestled between them without a word. He rested his head against Jack’s chest, and Jack let his chin perch atop that black hair. It was longer now, conforming to the need to keep his head warm. There was no mohawk. Jack could really get his fingers in it. Sometimes while laying there he kissed Red Harvest’s hair, or his forehead, or any place he could reach; and sometimes Red Harvest met him halfway and tilted his head up. They kissed. They kissed for short periods or longer lazy ones.

The relationship between them felt natural in its own unnatural way, like it was one more convention of society to shun. Jack did not know Red Harvest’s exact thoughts. Even if they shared one whole language, it was not the sort of matter he would embrace the discussion of. Red Harvest did not know what he wanted or expected. Jack would take what was given. So when Red Harvest laid beside him, Jack would take the opportunity of intimacy it presented him. He put one arm around the boy’s back to hold him close, and with his free hand he petted and fingered that deep black hair. They fell asleep like that, though Jack rarely knew who slipped off first.

Being stationary would make hunting and surviving more difficult. Jack did not tell Red Harvest, not yet. Eventually, they would exhaust any animal in the area that stuck its head out, but they might get a month’s use out of the cave before that happened. The last thing Jack wanted was for Red Harvest to know he was keeping them there so long out of consideration. It would be an insult if he thought Jack considered him weak, especially when he never complained. But it was not about strength. It was all about what a man was acclimated to. Red Harvest was not comfortable in the mountains any more than Jack was comfortable in the desert.

They were different men and remained different.

The contrast of white clay paint was not as lovely or pronounced as on Red Harvest’s skin. But he painted Jack with it and other colors. His closed fists pressed the white onto Jack’s chest. He dabbed claws above the end of each knuckle. The artwork very much resembled the footprint of a bear.

“White Bear,” Red Harvest named him in Comanche.

Jack grinned. “I’m a bear now?”

“Bear from start,” he said.

“You mean to say I was always a bear, is that it?”

“Always,” Red Harvest repeated, “always a bear. Big, strong... stomping, growling bear.” Jack laughed. Red Harvest looked down and touched the bear necklace he had made. The paint on the backs of his fingers was so much brighter than the dingy teeth and claws. “Lone bear,” he said, “hurt bear. Bear that surrender.” It was a close enough approximation to saying Jack had given up, on everything, on life. “I won’t leave.”

“It’s not your responsibility to keep me company,” Jack argued, always reminding Red Harvest that he owed him nothing. “Ya hear that now? It ain’t. I never asked you to do it, so don’t you think you have to. Not your job, Red.”

“No,” he disagreed, “it is.” He took his hand away, curled the fingers closed, and watched the gradual movement of it. “And it is... your responsibility, Jack... keep me company.”

How pitiful.

“What lonely sons of bitches we are, huh?” The lines blurred so greatly Jack could no longer tell if they were together because they liked each other or if they gripped and held because they did not want to be alone. Maybe it was both. Maybe it was just the second. Was there a wrong in that?

He held Red Harvest tight. He simply held him for a minute or more. The embrace and its intensity was returned. When they parted, the paint on Jack’s chest was smeared. They laughed, and Jack made him redo it.

-

The predictable, the great inevitable, occurred.

“I’m hungry,” Red Harvest groaned.

“Well then you should’ve thought to think that hare might have a hop left in him,” Jack replied. They were on rations, and the first animal they had seen in a week got loose when Red Harvest thought the thing was frozen and dead enough to be released from the trap and laid on the ground. “Sorry,” Jack apologized, feeling immediate guilt from adding to Red Harvest’s hunger by saying it was his fault. “Good news is a man only makes a mistake like that one time. You learned from it— learned— and that’s worth more ‘an one little rabbit. Yes, it is.”

Jack had been hungry before. He had been hungry so often and for so long in ways he knew Red Harvest never had, not consistently. He knew this because Red Harvest’s horse had a name. Jack’s did not.

The rations were split a little differently after that. The half-and-half shares shifted in Red Harvest’s favor. Jack kept him from noticing for a few days, but when he did, it was only a small lie for Jack to say he had fat to spare. Belts tightened in wintertime.

Instead of going out in the cold to check traps or eying the horses a little too long, Jack encouraged Red Harvest to distract his mind. They had no books for reading, no paper for writing, no instruments for playing, but there were other forms of wasteful entertainment.

Gambling was a sin, but a deck of cards would not be snubbed on those grounds. Besides, when all the beads belonged to Red Harvest, regardless of outcome, the Lord would not begrudge a few innocent hands of poker where the loser exchanged his beads with the winner. The bulk of them went back into Red Harvest’s little bag at the end, no harm. There were some they left out.

Jack’s beard was longer with winter and the season’s slackened standard of grooming. Red Harvest braided some of his more lovely beads into it, those colorful ones that looked best against the dark hair and the gray. The two of them sat facing one another on the cave floor, so close that Red Harvest was on Jack’s feet and nearly on his lap. Jack poked his neck forward that last bit of space between them and enjoyed the lulling sensation of strong fingers making such delicate, meticulous motions on him.

“How I look?” Jack asked when it was done. He longed for the mirror they did not have.

“Handsome,” Red Harvest answered. He touched the beads and petted Jack’s beard. “Very handsome.”

Jack would wear them for a few days at least, until they became an inconvenience. He used his fingers and tried to discern the patterns of beads and braids through touch alone. “I like it,” he proclaimed. Red Harvest smiled at him and Jack smiled back. The kiss came like the second nature impulse it now was. Jack brushed his fingers through Red Harvest’s hair and kept them there when he pulled away. “I know you’re not gonna keep a beard,” he said, “but you let that hair on top keep growin’ and I’ll put you some beads in there, how’s that?” Comanche men typically kept their hair long, so Jack knew convincing him would be no obstacle. Selfishness compelled him to have more of that shiny black hair to look at and touch, but if Red Harvest declined, he would not push it. They were coupled but retained autonomy.

“Maybe,” Red Harvest said after consideration, strategically avoiding a definite decision either way. He touched Jack’s beard one more time before sitting back.

“So you gonna teach me to braid if you do?”

Red Harvest laughed. “I’ll teach you, Jack. I like to teach you.”

“I like to teach you,” Jack echoed.

They would divest one another of separate knowledge until there was but one shared intellect between them.

Their stomachs rumbled all day and through the night. The next day, they caught two wolves out hunting for their own meal. The pelts Jack and Red Harvest collected from their quadrupedal victims would add to the soft, lush bed they were making. Sleeping was comfortable at least, and it felt all the better with food in their stomachs.

For weeks they scraped by in that manner. They were never so full as to feel satisfied. They were never so hungry as to kill a horse. They were always bored. They were always using the time to know each other better, to know his life better, his culture better, his language better. It was a bitter, suspended existence that begged for an end.

It broke.

Powdered snow became wet. Animal sounds became loud. An optimistic tree let its green leaves bloom. Spring was coming. With the ingress of spring came the opportunity to move from the cave and then to stop moving altogether, to stop hunting for just a little while. It was easier to survive in warm weather. Food was more plentiful and diverse. The demand for fur was nonexistent and its pursuit was pointless. There was nothing to do in spring and summer but relax and take from nature only what was needed to live. Jack wanted to relax. He wanted to sit still.

“You think we ought to build a cabin?” he suggested. They stood in a clearing that simply begged for one. What a perfect spot to live with its level ground, its shading trees, its water supply so near the stream rippled ever constant in the ears. “Trade some of these furs off before they’re worthless, get us a good saw. Yes sir, I think we ought to build us a cabin.”

“Home?”

Of the many definitions and synonyms for ‘cabin,’ Jack supposed that, yes, ‘home’ was one of them. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ll build ourselves a home. How’s that sound to you, Red?”

“Yes,” Red Harvest replied. “Yes, I’ll build strong home with you, Jack.”

It sounded pleasant and fulfilling. It was an aspiration that had the decency to be obtainable. Jack wanted to make the worst, most painful mistake of his life a second time.

“Home.”

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: [coloneldollhouse](http://coloneldollhouse.tumblr.com) has drawn the ABSOLUTE CUTEST fanart for this fic and posted it [on their tumblr.](http://coloneldollhouse.tumblr.com/post/152327244983) Definitely go look at it. It is SO adorable!
> 
> This is over 10,000 words, and I’m still not sure if it even has a plot. No idea what I blathered on about for so long.
> 
> I want a Jeremiah Johnson AU where the mountain man is forced to marry a native person and adopt a son. But with a happier ending, of course.
> 
> Also yes, I did borrow quite a bit of backstory from Jeremiah Johnson and the man whose life (or tall tales) inspired that movie. But in my defense, The Magnificent Seven borrowed first, all right?! Mountain man? Dead family? Killing 300 Crow? That’s a might big coincidence you have there. Mighty big coincidence indeed. I talk about it more [here](http://twilight-deviant.tumblr.com/post/151898089067) on my tumblr, if you're interested. It's pretty much what I have in the fic I think.
> 
> I don’t wanna be a downer but... given the year the film is set, most Comanche were already moved to a reservation. So Red Harvest ever finding his family again is a very long longshot. I cry.


End file.
